This application is related to co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/429,519 for A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMMUNICATION USING PULSE DECODING, filed Oct. 28, 1999 and to co-pending and co-owned U.S. application Ser. No. 09/805,854 for METHOD AND APPARATUS TO RECOVER DATA FROM PULSES, filed Mar. 13, 2001, both of which are owned by the Assignee of the present invention and are herein incorporated by reference for all purposes.
This invention relates generally to a communication technique and more specifically to techniques for communication by converting arbitrary analog waveforms to sequences of pulses.
In co-pending, commonly owned U.S. application Ser. No. 09/429,519, the communication system illustrated in FIG. 1 shows that groups of pulses are supplied to a decoding (decision) device 14. The decoder disclosed therein recovers data from the pulses; for example, by counting pulses. Additional recovery techniques are disclosed in co-pending, commonly owned U.S. application Ser. No. 09/805,854.
It is desirable to increase the robustness of systems which employ the techniques disclosed in the foregoing identified applications. The utility of such systems can be further increased by increasing their information carrying capacity.
According to the invention, a method and apparatus for a communication circuit is provided to recover information in a received signal. The communication circuit comprises at least two receiver circuits. The received signal is fed to each receiver circuit. Each receiver circuit is configured in accordance with the invention to produce output comprising a group of one or more pulses in response to detecting some portion of the received signal. The output of each receiver is fed to a decision device, which produces one or more symbols.
In one embodiment of the invention, the groups of pulses from each receiver are processed by the decision device to produce a single symbol. In this embodiment of the invention, information transmission is more robust due to the redundancy of the information.
In another embodiment of the invention, the groups of pulses from each receiver are processed to produce a symbol from each such group, thereby enhancing information carrying capacity.